Buddha’s scheme for forming noble-minded generalists in society

Abstract

A passage of the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad asserts that the cause of actions is the will, which has desire as its origin, and that the removal of desire is a sine qua non for entrance into eternal bliss. Following the main line of this idea, Buddha has made two important discoveries. The first is the discovery of the subconscious entity called papañca, a subjacent but influential concomitant of all kinds of human mental phenomena and, at the same time, the cause of all of our miseries. The second discovery is the fact that, to eliminate the papañca, it is necessary to practice the solitary and meditative life of a mendicant without any possession. Our consciousness cannot be changed, at least as far its foundations are concerned, by rational inference but only through such actions as solitary life with introspection into the nature of our consciousness. His claim that only such a solitary meditative mendicant could give people good advice on life would be most suggestive. Good advice (i.e. the most precious gift) could only be given by a person of profound wisdom as well as of total altruism, who realizes himself as such a personality through introspection into the nature of consciousness and a solitary life of no possession. These two processes should be the main components of forming the wise and altruistic person. Buddha’s instruction was addressed neither to the general public nor to monks living in a community (saṅgha, which did not seem to exist at his time) but to his small number of disciples. His scheme for forming in a society a small number of generalists of noble character should be the subject of more serious examination for the human and social sciences of today. In addition, the proposal of Buddha to carry on praxis for the change of cognitive foundation may suggest that the objectivist stance of scientists puts them in fetters, preventing them from engaging themselves in praxis to ensure the objectivity of observation, and restricting them to their sphere of cognition.